


The Lost Art of Persuasion

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fakeout Makeout, IDK lots of tropes just, Team Detecting after a fashion, Total AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25583869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: “I don’t like that you’re enjoying this."“Andthere’sthat spirit of generosity that I’ve come to expect from you during our short but—seemingly endless acquaintance.”Veronica Mars, Neptune's pre-eminent P.I., is accustomed to sweet-talking her way into and out of a wide range of sticky situations. Logan Echolls seems born to throw a wrench in her plans.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 46
Kudos: 224





	The Lost Art of Persuasion

Logan Echolls’s reserves of patience are rapidly dwindling by the time he steals away to the hotel bar for a scotch on the rocks and fifteen minutes of solitude. He’s had a basically continuous headache for the last five days, and he doesn’t envision the situation improving in the next two, when this stupid festival finally comes to an end and he can go back to normal life. Whatever that means, these days.

The bar at _La Mela_ is slow tonight. It’s a Thursday evening and most everyone in the hotel is here for the art show in the ballroom-turned-galleria, fully stocked with an open bar of its own. There are a couple of Neptune locals lingering around the corners—industry people commiserating over twelve hour shifts—but things are otherwise quiet, and Logan counts that as a blessing.

He’s scrolling idly on his phone—has been for several minutes—before someone else comes and joins him at the bar, two seats down. That someone, he can’t help but notice on a compulsive glance to his right, is a blonde. A pretty blonde at that. She’s wearing a short black dress and skinny-ultra-high heels; she sets a ruby red clutch on the bar and tucks wisps of wavy gold hair behind her ear as she leans over the counter and orders an Old Fashioned.

Logan sort of tries not to stare and looks back down at his phone.

Only because he has excellent spatial awareness does he notice the Pretty Blonde idly perusing the auction catalogue while she sips her cocktail, and only because his peripheral vision is above average, does he note when she sets down the brochure and replaces it with a menu.

“The Wild Mushroom Crostini is worth your time, but steer clear of the caviar. It’s _domestic_ ,” he says, but doesn’t look up from the scroll of e-mails on his phone. Aforementioned peripheral vision tells him that Pretty Blonde doesn’t look up from the menu either, though she does crack a smile.

“I guess that answers my question,” she hums.

“What question was that?”

“Well it was _going_ to be ‘come here often?’” She sighs dramatically. “Now I guess we don’t have anything to talk about.”

She grins at him. Logan lifts his glass to her, then takes a drink. “You here for the event?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“In town for work. I’m staying at the Neptune Grand up the road. The concierge said this would be a good place for dinner.” She picks up the brochure again. “It looks pretty cool though,” she goes on. “’Wish I’d known about the show beforehand. I actually took a couple of Art History classes at USC.”

“The afternoon events are open to the public all week, if you want to see the collections,” he tells her, because what’s the point in losing months of his life over this stupid thing if he can’t share his wealth of knowledge with pretty women in bars? “It’s just the stuff at night you need the special pass to.”

“Are you bidding on anything?” She sounds faintly impressed.

“That would be counterproductive.” He doesn’t bother explaining, and the woman doesn’t ask. Just bats mascara-thick lashes at him before returning to the menu.

“So what else do you recommend?” she asks. “Besides the Crostini. Oooh, what about the lobster dumplings? Those sound good.”

“I wouldn’t know. Allergic.”

“That sucks. You know what I always wondered about allergies?” she asks. She’s got that velvety, So-Cal intonation with which Logan is very familiar: “How’d you figure it out that you had one? Harrowing experience at Long John Silvers?”

It’s _funny,_ but she looks dead serious, and Logan isn’t sure if she’s joking or not: “Um—close. I was a kid. Four or five. Someone ordered a plate of crab cakes for the table. I had to ride in an ambulance, but at least my parents stopped complaining that all I ever wanted to eat was macaroni and cheese.”

“Poor thing.” There’s something almost sarcastic in her sympathetic pout, and it intrigues.

“Restaurant in Disneyland—kinda ruined the park for a while, but then they built the Indiana Jones ride to make it up to me.”

Goldilocks’s eyes go wide. They’re a pretty shade of blue, her eyes, which is almost enough to compensate for the fact that she seems to think he’s serious: “ _Really_?”

 _Alright, so sarcasm is not this particular blonde’s forte. Noted._ “That’s what my mom always told me, and I can’t imagine why she’d lie.”

She catches on then and giggles, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Jerk. You had me going.”

Logan sips his drink, innocent, and checks his phone.

“I’m Natalie,” she says, after a beat of silence. “Natalie Dwyer.”

He shakes the offered hand—she has a surprisingly firm grip—and replies, “Logan.”

“Nice to meet you, Logan.” Something about the way his name rolls off her tongue, low and smooth, is not what one would term unpleasant. Neither is the gentle uptick of her lips as she asks, “Have you eaten?”

_There it is. The invitation._

Logan compiles a quick pro/con list.

He is supposed to be working, not picking up girls at the hotel bar. It’s been three months since he broke up with Amy, hasn’t done all _that_ much in the way of dating since then, but is now really the time? Sure, Blondie— _Natalie—_ is hot, doesn’t seem completely dead-behind-the-eyes... 

God, he’s getting old. The problem with having a high school experience that is more like college spring break, and a college experience that is more like touring with Van Halen, is—aside from the _myriad of obvious problems_ —that Logan now feels older and more tired than his mere twenty-nine years should allow. The novelty of people wanting him wore off _eons_ ago (in a way that it never really seemed to for his gem of a father) so a meaningless hook up with a woman who is halfway to the airport feels less tempting and more like a backslide.

Still. _Three months_.

 _What the hell, he has to get back to the gala at some point, anyway: it’s just dinner. Noncommittal flirting. And she_ is _hot..._

So she moves down to the stool next to him and shares her menu.

“What are you doing at this shindig if you’re not buying any art?” she asks, once they’ve put in an order for several different appetizers (“Like _tapas!_ ” was her enthusiastic suggestion).

Logan exhales slowly, tries to decide how much he wants to get into _all that_. “I’m selling a couple of items.”

“Ooooh, are you an artist?”

“Uh—no.”

It’s his dad’s stuff. Every couple of years, Aaron used to fancy himself a Renaissance man and buy a bunch of useless crap to impress Hollywood douchebags into giving him Oscar bait roles. He got real into the collector gig after Logan’s mom died (probably part of the whole “image rehabilitation” shtick) in those few, pitiful years before the Kanes decided to sell their house, and Logan joined Duncan Kane in the task of cleaning out Lilly’s old room. It was the first actual chore either boy was ever assigned in their whole damn lives, and they solved a fucking murder: that’s gotta be some kind of record, right? Didn’t do much for the image rehabilitation though, and—after the trial, acquittal, and subsequent unceremonious nixing of Aaron Echolls—Logan ended up with (among other things) a metric shit-ton of very ugly, very valuable art. It’s done nothing but collect dust for the last ten years, and Logan is finally getting around to pitching it.

Unfortunately, that explanation involves a lot more murder and general violence than Logan feels is entirely appropriate at this stage in the relationship, so what he says is: “Just emptying out an old storage unit.”

“Mmm.” Natalie nods, sympathetic. “Inheritance? I know that game. My grandmother left me her place on Lake St. Louis. It’s gorgeous, but what am I gonna do, vacation in _Missouri_?”

“Unthinkable,” he says.

_Trust fund girl. He should’ve guessed when she name-dropped USC. At least she’s not a trophy wife or looking to become one. In town for work—public relations or maybe Pharma Rep... something that requires style—_

“Kinda cool, though,” she says, brandishing the program again. “All the proceeds go to charity or something, right?”

Logan shrugs, hedges: "Giving liberates the soul of the giver."

"Sure," Natalie murmurs. She props her elbow on the bar and leans into the palm of her hand. “So what do you do for work?”

And she’s cute, yeah, but Neptune is full of beautiful people who just want to screw you over. “You know I’m not really sure," he says, "but I keep showing up and they keep paying me.”

The look she levels him with is patently unimpressed by the cliché, and Logan laughs in spite of himself. But then she softens and smiles again, runs her index finger over the rim of her glass. “Let me guess—hedge funds?”

Logan scoffs, properly offended.

Natalie giggles. “Celebrity chef?”

“ _No_.”

“Um—mystery novelist?”

“You’re not even trying.”

“Not a fan of the detective story? Fine. Uh—sports agent.”

“That’s not a real job.”

“Architect.”

“Definitely not a real job.”

“High School English Teacher.”

“ _Please_.”

“Doctor.”

“No.”

“Lawyer.”

“No.”

“Dog walker.”

“You’re really bad at this.” 

Natalie gasps, feigns offense. “I will have you know that I am, like— _amazing_ at reading people. First of all, I’m a Pisces, so—duh. And second of all, reading people is practically my job. I’m director of public outreach at my company.”

Their first round of appetizers arrives—cornbread bites, then toasted baguette with maple apple butter and brie—so Logan clicks his tongue. “Maybe you should rethink careers there...”

“ _Hey_.” She’s still smiling, but her eyes narrow slightly. Something mischievous flickers over her face. The hair on the back of Logan’s neck stands up in response—abruptly, and he can’t say why, except that some innate fight-or-flight reflex has been activated, like he’s suddenly found himself in the cross-hairs even while Natalie beams angelically at him. It’s inexplicable and... phenomenally attractive, truth be told.

But then she says out loud, “Valentino, hmm?” and he realizes she’s checking the label on his suit jacket, slung over the back of his chair. “Custom tailor. You like to spend, but inheritances...” she glances toward the hall and the art gala within, then back to Logan, “...you don’t care about. Won’t do anything that makes you feel beholden to anyone you don’t like, you move around a lot. Whatever you’re doing now, you haven’t been doing it long and you won’t be doing it forever. Probably a start-up.” She sounds almost bored. “Doesn’t matter what kind.” She sips her drink and adds, “How’d I do?”

_Yep. Definitely attractive._

—In a way that sets off all kinds of alarms.

Because she is pretty much on target. He spent three years after college surfing on five different continents—which was fun, if not exactly _fulfilling_. Then he came back to Neptune, worked for Duncan for a minute ( _hated_ that), then reconnected with Mac from College, who needed someone to help out on the whole business side of her tech business. Logan didn’t have much by way of experience, but he’s smart and mean, so the rest comes pretty naturally. That, plus this whole dabbling in philanthropy, and Logan finds that he’s not completely miserable, at any rate.

Of course most of that is pretty easily Google-able, and for a moment, he thinks this woman is looking at him like he’s prey. He should probably get up and leave, so of course all he wants to do is stay planted exactly where he is.

But then once more _,_ the moment passes. He says something vague in response like, “Not bad,” and Natalie preens and smiles. The sharpness dissipates, and she’s all sunshine and cocktails-on-the-corporate-credit-card again.

“I told you I’m good at reading people,” she says. “It’s all marketing, really.” She pops a cornbread ball into her mouth and chews, boastful, then drops her eyes to the art program on the bar. “So what’s your favorite one in here?”

Logan can honestly admit, “I don’t know that much about art.”

“But you have to have a _favorite_. You went to the show, didn’t you?”

“I have a _least_ favorite.”

“Close enough. Show me.” She pushes the booklet over, and Logan flips to the item in question: it’s this ugly salmon-colored canvas with a slab of amber sticking out of it. Doesn’t make the least bit of sense to Logan, but it’s expected to go for half a mil. “Why don’t you like it?” asks Natalie, studying the low quality photo with interest.

_Because it’s ugly and boring and expensive._

“I don’t know, I just don’t like it.”

“Is it one of yours?”

“Uh-huh.”

She doesn’t say anything else for a minute, just continues to flip through the catalogue, selects another cornbread bite.

The rest of the appetizers arrive in shifts: roasted Brussels sprouts, the mushroom crostini, marinated olives, and ahi poke... they kind of went to town on the starter menu. Natalie picks at all of it, still paging through the program and chit-chatting casually. Soon, they’ve covered all the where-are-you-from and what-did-you-study bases. They both like the Dodgers; her folks are divorced and they live in Los Feliz; she lives in the Bay Area, _not too bad a drive, six-and-a-half hours-ish, depending on traffic_ , _but she flew down for this trip._ All normal bar-talk. Logan doesn’t feel inclined to get into murders and suicides and histories of compulsive behavior—well who does, really?—so he leaves off his last name and tells the story about the unlucky Swede in the surf shop in Brazil. Natalie seems impressed. On the whole, she seems pretty easy to impress. But Logan gets the feeling she’s a lot shrewder than she lets on.

“This one,” she decides after a good while, when the food is almost gone and her drink is just melting ice. “This is my favorite.” She slides the gala program across the bar and points, and Logan looks. It’s a weird abstract statue—not part of Aaron’s collection, this one was donated by the artist herself. Not a big-ticket item either—maybe five or six grand?—but Logan doesn’t have any idea if Natalie’s choice is indicative of what the experts call “taste” or not.

“I think that one sold last night,” he tells her. “It’s not on display anymore.”

“I missed it?” she asks. “That’s my luck. Guess it doesn’t matter anyway, though, I don’t have tickets.”

“You can still get into the daytime events,” says Logan again, spearing the last Sprout with a fork.

“I’m at my conference all day tomorrow and I fly out at eight,” she says, regretful. “Do you want any more of the olives?”

“Have at it.”

Logan mulls it over for a minute. There’s the faint tug of apprehension again, but he can’t quite identify the source. It would be the easiest thing in the word for him to get Natalie a pass for the evening—it _is_ his event. Hell, if she really wanted to see that sculpture so bad, it’s probably back in in the safe room... the sold items don’t ship until tomorrow night...

Natalie polishes off the last of the Greek olives, and Logan tries to figure out which is the more naïve instinct: bending the rules because a cute blonde looked disappointed, or believing Natalie “Director of Public Outreach” Dwyer is actually an art thief, bent on sneaking into the hotel safe. On the one hand, he _has_ seen movies; on the other, he’s not sure he should be basing decisions off of Charlize Theron flicks. Anyway, the place is _lousy_ with security; he made sure of that.

Still, the idea feels risky and unnecessary, and he's just about to steer the conversation elsewhere, offer to buy her another drink maybe, when his phone starts to buzz on the counter.

It’s Bianca—the tirelessly competent event coordinator for the show. If she’s calling him in, there’s likely a genuine catastrophe.

He makes the perfunctory apologies to Natalie and cants away to answer the call: “What’s up?”

“Do you know someone named Caitlin Ford?” asks Bianca.

 _Unfortunately._ “I feel like this conversation will go smoother if I say ‘no.’”

“She’s contesting the results of one of the silent auctions and says she knows you,” says Bianca. “Not that it makes a difference, Lionel Parry outbid her, so...”

“Even if he hadn’t, I’d say give it to Lionel.”

“Well come over here and tell that to Princess McBitch.” (Bianca is not a mincer of words.) “I’ve had all I can take of her and there’s a problem with the caterer.”

“Can’t you just tell her to shove it?”

“No, but _you_ can,” Bianca sing songs. “Pedro’s holding her off on the veranda.”

“Isn’t this what I hired you for?”

“Do _you_ want to deal with the caterer?”

“No.”

“Then come deal with Caitlin Ford.”

Bianca hangs up, and Logan briefly ponders what would happen if he just _left_ the venue. He doesn’t actually do it, but the idea is tempting.

“Crisis?” asks Natalie, who is picking the last of the mushrooms off the crostini plate.

“Afraid so,” says Logan. He slides off the barstool. “I’ve gotta go... exorcise a demon.”

Natalie’s eyes widen. “Sounds dramatic. Is everything...?”

“Sorry to cut this short,” Logan interrupts, already waving down the guy behind the bar. “Put it on my card,” he says to the bartender, “I’ll close out later.”

“Oh you don’t have to...” Natalie is starting to say, but Logan isn’t paying much attention. _He shouldn’t have held this stupid event in Neptune—then he wouldn’t have to deal with the likes of Caitlin Ford, Jesus Christ—_

“Not at all. Sorry to dine and dash. Nice to meet you, Natalie.”

She says something else, but Logan is tugging on his suit jacket and Bianca is texting him to hurry up, and it’s really not until later, after he has dealt with Caitlin Ford and half a dozen other minor “emergencies” that have cropped up in the interim, that he has the chance to feel a twinge of regret. Natalie was hot and smart and funny—he should’ve gotten her number or something. But, then again, she’s on a plane in twenty-four hours anyway: it’s not like they’d have a second date.

(Still... three months.)

* * *

Well, shit.

So much for Plan A.

After Logan Echolls’s hasty exit, Veronica Mars glares at the remains of the appetizers on the bar for a full ten seconds, still trying to figure out how exactly she went wrong in all of this, before she notices the bartender—a twenty-something hipster with a waxed mustache—staring at her.

“What?”

“You know my shift ends in half an hour...”

“Not in the mood, buddy.”

She grabs her purse and beats a quick path out of La Mela.

 _It’s all stupid Google’s fault_ , she concludes, once she is safely—if irritably—sequestered in her car. Google painted entirely the wrong image of Logan Echolls from the start. She had bad information, so she didn’t create the right character. The Internet lied to her, dammit.

And the annoying thing (besides all of it) is that she doesn’t have a Plan B. Yet.

This fact is ludicrous on its face, because Veronica Mars _always_ has a Plan B. Even right now, the act of pulling into the drive-thru at _Picante_ and ordering four carne asada tacos for dinner is Plan B, because she _knew_ she wasn’t going to get a full meal’s worth at some overpriced business-class joint like _La Mela_.

It’s just that she hadn’t expected to need a Plan B, when Plan A was supposed to be as absurdly simple as getting her mark—Logan Echolls, of all known brands of notoriety—to flirt with her long enough to lift his keys.

Jesus. 

She should just hand off her P.I.’s license right now.

After the drive-thru, Veronica is too mad to drive, so she pulls into the CVS parking lot across the street and scarfs down two tacos. She is contemplating a third when her dad calls, and she answers with a surly, “Hello?”

“Well, hello, sweetheart, it’s good to talk to you, too,” comes her father’s voice, sarcastic, over the line.

“Sorry. Annoying day. What’s up?”

“Are you at the office?”

“No, I’m on my way home.”

“Did you meet with the O’Briens?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you think?”

“Should just be a matter of a D.N.A. test. I’ll call Sal tomorrow.”

“You’re on the Felt case tonight?”

“Yep.” She’s aware of how bitter she sounds, even in monosyllable, and begins picking at the foil on taco number three.

“...Oh- _kay_ ,” says her dad. “Is everything alright?”

“Yep. So smooth. All plans perfectly executed.”

“ _Really_.”

“Minor hiccup, totally correctable.”

“Okay. Well I got the Pacer money-shot...”

“So everything’s coming up Mars.”

“If you say so. Don’t forget you’re taking the ten-thirty with Mrs. Glau tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh, I’ll see you in the morning. Bye.” Veronica hangs up. Unwraps the third taco and takes a vengeful bite.

This is all stupid Google’s fault.

She was caught off guard, is the part that really grinds Veronica’s gears. When she’s home, swaddled in sweats and her fuzziest Stanford sweatshirt, pulling on socks because _why is this stupid apartment always so drafty?—_ she knows that she should be hammering out the details of Plan B. But she isn’t.

Because this is _mostly_ Google’s fault for sending her into the scene expecting a frat boy celeb-brat ready to hit on anything in a skirt, but it is also a _little_ bit Veronica’s fault. Logan Echolls has an easily Google-able type, and maybe that type veers towards supermodel levels of hot as often as not (with at least one _actual_ super model in recent history), but Veronica knows how to dress for her part, and she doesn’t think she missed the mark _so_ badly.

But she was _nettled._ She got _nettled_ when Logan Echolls didn’t seem particularly enamored of _Perky Blonde Natalie_. He hadn’t been terribly compelled by _Cool Girl Who Hates Salads and Only Likes to Talk About Sports_ , either. The only time he seemed remotely engaged was when she let her cover slip a little, and what good did that do her? You can’t con someone into thinking you’re trustworthy by being yourself, when "yourself" is fundamentally untrustworthy.

Untrustworthy for the sake of the moral good, of course, but still.

What was she supposed to do, anyway? 

_He quoted Maya Angelou for God's sake._

—She wanders through the apartment and ends up in front of the T.V., where she flips on a _Cheers_ rerun, because she’s really not trying to think—

It’s not like she could have marched up to him and said _Hi, I’m Veronica Mars, I’m a private investigator and I need you to get me access to the hotel basement, but I swear I’m not trying to touch any of your ugly art, I just need to plant a camera so I can uncover a plot to steal diamonds._

That wouldn’t work, right?

_No of course it wouldn’t_ , she reasons later, as she aggressively scoops cookie dough ice cream into her favorite bowl.

Echolls _visibly_ relaxed when she provided her cover story, revealed herself to be of his ilk: another trust fund girl, well within his comfort zone. If he knew the truth—that she lives in a tiny one-bedroom in south county Neptune, works with her dad as a private investigator, and that the only thing she’s ever inherited are abandonment issues (from Mom) and love for a good mystery (from Dad)—he would have had the sense to bid his farewells, and Veronica wouldn’t even have had the chance to do what little sleuthing she _did_ manage, checking his jacket pockets.

So maybe it’s not anyone’s fault, Veronica decides, when she climbs into bed sometime later ( _except maybe still a little bit Google_ ). It’s not like _every_ mark is gonna be Leo D’Amato, where you can basically wave a sparkler in front of his face and get into an evidence locker. It is theoretically possible that somebody who was raised with paparazzi crowding his driveway, surrounded at every moment by people looking to get famous by association, would err on the cautious side.

It’s fine. It’s A-OK. She’ll get the keys off the manager or something. It’s fine. She just needs a Plan B.

She decides to work on Plan B _after_ some additional light Googling, dark bedroom illuminated only by the glow of her laptop.

Echolls is better looking in person.

But also now that she has seen him in person—been confronted with all six-feet of him, with his nice woodsy cologne and button-up-shirt-fighting-a-losing-battle-against-biceps—she thinks the scroll of red carpet pics and pap-shots that pop up on Image Search fair better than they did during research time this morning.

And most of the shitty stuff in his biography is at _least_ ten years old.

She’d been prepared for sleaze. She’d been ready for arrogant douchebag. She could’ve giggled and feigned naiveté through weak innuendo, negging, boring conversation, unironic _that’s what she said_ jokes.

She had been genuinely unprepared for Logan Echolls not to suck as a person.

* * *

The case is one that’s been simmering on the backburner for longer than Veronica would like. Abigail Felt—thirty-seven, resident of the Orchard Hill neighborhood where she resides with her wife and two sons—contacted Mars Investigations a little over two months ago, claiming she’d been robbed. Someone, according to Mrs. Felt, had stolen a family heirloom—a hundred-year-old diamond necklace made by her great-great grandfather as a gift for her great grandmother.

And of _course_ there was a story. There’s _always_ a story.

Mrs. Felt’s great-great-grandfather was a jeweler in Germany at the turn of the last century. He made a necklace for his daughter and gifted it to her for her eighteenth birthday. She, in turn, gave the necklace to her daughter on _her_ eighteenth birthday. However, during the second World War, the necklace was lost—which is to say it was taken, along with all the rest of the family’s belongings, though the family managed to escape to the United States. The necklace was preserved—gifted to some German officer’s wife—and, after the war, sold from collector to collector. It’s a complex, beautiful piece, exquisitely cut diamonds set in platinum—the most valuable stone situated in the center of the necklace, framed by smaller gems in the shape of a rosebud. It is utterly unique, engraved with the creator’s name, a personal inscription, and the date. Since Abigail’s great-great-grandfather was a well-known artist in his era, it’s worth a pretty penny. Most recently, it was purchased by the Ayers family, who included it in their collection of both new and antique diamonds currently touring cities across the country. Smaller acquisitions in the Ayers’ collection, like the necklace, are put up for auction at each stop, and—the moment Abigail Felt learned that her family’s heirloom had been uncovered—complete with the name of her ancestor’s shop and the inscription she’d known by heart since childhood—she flew to the next stop on the tour (an auction in Atlanta) and bought the necklace back.

“I overpaid,” Mrs. Felt had confessed to Veronica, “But it meant so much to my mother to get the necklace back in the family.”

Naturally, Veronica had been rather confused when Mrs. Felt then proceeded to produce the necklace in question.

“It was examined and authenticated by the expert at the auction,” she’d told Veronica earnestly. “And then I had my own experts look it over just to be completely sure. They all certified that the necklace was authentic, and every single diamond in it was genuine. But then I had it re-evaluated last month for insurance...”

The largest stone in the necklace is exactly what it purports to be: a six carat antique diamond, miraculously preserved in its original setting. Every one of the other fifteen stones is glass.

Veronica asked the expected questions: “Could you have been sold a fake?”

_No—the necklace and its many gems were verified by multiple experts, including an outsider hired by Mrs. Felt, and she left the auction with the item in-hand._

“Could someone in your family have switched out the diamonds? Maybe someone strapped for cash...?”

_No, of course not, there was no cause for anything like that, and they all knew how much the necklace meant to her..._

“What about the police?”

_The Balboa County sheriff’s department didn’t have much interest in the case: she still had the necklace, as well as the most valuable diamond, and the whole thing seemed more like an insurance matter to them._

“Then the insurance company said I was trying to defraud them and started threatening me,” Mrs. Felt explained, “And I didn’t know what else to do, except hire an investigator of my own.”

Which brought her to Mars Investigations.

The case has been a long and tedious one, full of dead ends, and Veronica now knows more than she ever cared to about antique jewelry. The Who and The What came together about six weeks ago, when Veronica tracked down a couple of other unsatisfied customers, then attended the Ayers’ showcase in San Francisco. The _How_ has remained somewhat elusive, however, and she’s about forty-eight hours away from missing yet another opportunity to close this damn file.

Goddamn unhelpful Logan Freakin’ Echolls.

Dammit.

She needs a Plan B.

* * *

_Dammit: she needs a Plan C._

The next morning, Veronica makes it back to Mars Investigations in time for her ten-thirty meeting with Mrs. Glau, where she diligently takes notes about a suspicious prospective son-in-law. She _needs_ to take diligent notes, because she’s only half listening.

It’s been a busy morning. Veronica was in the office by seven-thirty, early enough to have coffee brewed and bagels toasted by the time her dad showed up, at which time they went through a quick review of the books for month-end, before Veronica headed out to snap some pictures for the Dawsons’ slip-and-fall case. She took the extra time to don a brunette wig before returning to La Mela, where she purchased a day pass for the art exhibits, _borrowed_ the event coordinator, Bianca Herrera’s phone ( _just to check her calendar, sheesh_ ), and got a good, thorough search of the hotel manager’s office. The disguise proved unnecessary, however: Echolls wasn’t around, and no one paid her any attention.

Now, sitting distracted through her ten-thirty, Veronica has a clear concept of the event and hotel security, as well as a working knowledge of La Mela’s layout. But she still doesn’t have the keys to the basement level corridor off the hotel conference hall.

And even though it’s far and away the dumbest idea Veronica has had all week, Plan C begins to take form in the fringes of her mind, and Mrs. Glau is scarcely out the door before Veronica tugs on her jacket, shouting to her father that she’ll be back later, while Googling driving directions to the _Coronet, Inc._ offices.

To say that Logan Echolls looks surprised when Veronica saunters uninvited into his office shortly after noon would be enough of an understatement that it might even be factually incorrect.

The office itself is nice—open, clean, lots of light and glass, but the furniture is a little classier than the ugly ergonomic Swedish statement pieces out in the foyer. Echolls is on the other side of a sleek desk, feet propped up on it, but angled so he can still reach his laptop. He’s doing all kinds of favors for a pair of dark slacks and a patterned button-up, not that Veronica is keeping score.

“Um...” is all he gets out, when Veronica lets his door swing shut behind her, and then she’s cutting him off:

“You have questions, I have answers, maybe it’s easier to let me talk first.”

He ignores her advice. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“By foot. See?” She gestures to herself with both thumbs, “All answers.”

Echolls slings his feet to the floor and straightens up. “I meant _how’d you get passed the desk_?”

Veronica shrugs. “Everyone’s at lunch.”

“How’d you get in the suite?”

“Pretended to be food delivery.”

“How’d you get in the building?”

“Someone held the door?”

“Jesus Christ.” Echolls tosses his head in despair and makes a grab for his cell phone, so Veronica hastily ushers herself into the chair opposite him.

“Okay, before you call security on me, hear me out. I have a favor to ask you, and it’s very important.”

“You have a favor to—? Who the hell _are_ you?” But she’s already handing over her business card.

“Veronica Mars,” she says.

“Not Natalie Dwyer.” Well, at least he recognizes her from the happy-go-lucky _girl next door_ he met last night. That's... technically something.

“You _are_ a sharp one.”

“I should’ve known—this is exactly how the one-eyed witch told me that I’d die...”

“I’m not a stalker,” Veronica promises, somewhat indignant.

Echolls looks at her card. “You’re a—free mason?”

“Huh?”

He twirls the cardstock back to face her, displaying her father’s admittedly peculiar _Mars Investigations_ logo.

“I’m an investigator.”

“You’re a _cop_?”

“I’m a _private_ investigator.”

“You’re a rent-a-cop.” He drops the card onto the desk with an annoyed flick of the fingers. “Fantastic.”

“You could just let me explain, y’know.”

“Please do, I’m all ears. If I get a vote on first point of clarification—how did you know where I work?”

“I Googled. It’s public information. Legally, not stalking.”

“Can’t wait to read _that_ one in the court documents.”

“So _dramatic_.” She pulls forward and folds her hands together atop his desk. “I have a client who has had some items stolen from her, and I’m trying to recover them.”

Echolls’s eyes narrow; his mouth’s a firm line and a muscle twitches in his jaw. He’s _pissed_ , genuinely furious for the first time since she entered his office. “This has to do with the gala,” he says, and his voice is low and dangerous.

“Only tangentially, but...”

“You know what, I don’t care, get out or I’m calling the cops.” He dismisses her with a wave. “In fact, I’m probably calling the cops anyway, so you might want to take the head start...”

“Oh come on, you don’t want to do that,” says Veronica. “You haven’t even heard my client’s sob story yet. It’s really good, trust me. Forgery, diamond heists, thieving Nazis—I’ve got it all. Plus you don’t want to deal with Sheriff Lamb. He’s the _worst_.”

Echolls stares, visibly conflicted for a second. Evidently, he had not anticipated additional resistance. _Well boo hoo, poor him, Veronica hadn’t anticipated putting all this effort into getting a goddamn key._ He’s holding his phone, poised to make a call but not doing so as he continues to stare over his desk at her. After a long moment, he repeats, “Who the _hell_ are you?”

“Veronica Mars,” she says again, points to her business card, then launches into the story.

“Even assuming,” says Echolls, five minutes later, after Veronica has laid out most of the facts, “for a second, that I believe any of that—which I don’t—what does it have to do with me? Why did you mooch a meal off me at the hotel last night and what the hell do you want from me now? We don’t have any diamonds at the gala, it’s an _art_ show...”

“No, no, no,” Veronica interrupts, “I don’t care about your art show. It’s about the hotel. The Ayers family owns the hotel chain where they’re hosting these jewelry exhibits. _La Mela_ is one of their venues and they’ve got a show Saturday night after you clear out. I was at the San Francisco show last month and I saw the security feeds...”

“How’d you manage that, hmm?” he asks dryly, but Veronica guesses it’s a rhetorical question.

“...Every room in the hotel where the diamonds are stored is caught on camera, _except_ the staging room, where they do the final inspection before sale. La Mela is the exact same layout as the other hotels, so I need to plant a camera there.”

“Okay, but _who’s_ stealing the diamonds?”

“Well—I don’t... really know. Someone organizing the exhibit? Lois Kyle, maybe? She’s the coordinator and she has the access to all the items. Or it could be one of the Ayers kids. It doesn’t matter...” (Echolls makes a face) “...I mean of course it _matters_ , but I can’t find out who’s swapping out the diamonds unless I can get a camera in that room.”

“How do you even know they’ll strike again? You can’t just go around selling fake diamonds like that, not with your name on it,” says Echolls, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “People will catch on.”

“Maybe eventually, yes, but the Ayers are strapped for cash and they have experts certifying that everything they’re selling is legit. They could be desperate. Plus, all the pieces have to be insured when they leave the premises, so they do the inspection in-house, before the switch. It was dumb luck that my client had hers revalued so soon after the purchase.”

Echolls just stares, and Veronica cannot quite gauge if he believes her, but at least he hasn’t called her bluff and phoned the sheriff in yet. “There's a vault off the same hallway as the staging room,” he says at length. “How do I know you’re not just trying to break in there?”

“For the _millionth_ time, I _don’t_ care about your stupid art.”

“Well if you _say_ so, it _must_ be true.”

“...There’s security in front of the safe. Key pads and passcodes and a guard, right? Even with your key I couldn’t get there. I just need to get into that hallway; you can come _with_ me if you’re so suspicious.”

“I _have_ seen movies, y’know.”

“I’m not trying to rob you.”

“You’ve already admitted to about a hundred different lies and you _literally_ tried to pick my pocket.”

“Pshaw, you’re not scared of a tiny little lady like me, are you?” He seems unamused by her honeyed smile. “What? It’s not like I _succeeded_ in picking your pocket. And you didn’t even get me into the gala, so...” Even _she_ is a little embarrassed by how offended she sounds. Echolls’s eyebrows perk up.

“I’m sorry, are you _mad_ at me?”

“Of course not.”

“You don’t actually think you have the moral high-ground here, do you?”

“ _No_.”

“And yet I haven’t heard—I don’t know, an _apology_?”

“I...” Veronica huffs and steels herself for the difficult: “I’m _sorry_. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I picked you up. I’m sorry I made you pay for mediocre hotel restaurant food. Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” He rolls forward in his chair so he’s right up against the desk. “In fact, I’m so overwhelmed by that touching display of emotion, that I won’t call security on you. You can show yourself out.” He favors her with a particularly annoying smile that just begs to be smacked, then shoos her with one hand. “ _Bye_ , now.”

“ _Seriously_? You’re not going to help me _at all_?”

“If I could, I wouldn’t. And I can’t, so I definitely won’t.” He flips opens his laptop again and proceeds to ignore her.

Veronica can’t believe she ever entertained the idea that this jackass was attractive. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t have the key to the basement.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“The hotel always gives the second copy to the host of any event using the facility. It’s checked out to you. You have a key.”

Echolls continues to type on his laptop. “You just think you know everything, don’t you?” Before she can respond, he smirks up at her, “As it turns out, what I have is a job. Which is the thing I’m trying to do right here, that you’re so rudely interrupting. And since I have a job, I gave the key to the event coordinator, since she’s—y’know—at the event.”

“Bianca Herrera doesn’t have the key,” says Veronica with well-earned certainty. She stole the woman’s briefcase _twice_ this morning, then shuffled around her purse just for kicks. There was _no_ key.

“Yes, she does.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes she does.”

“No she _doesn’t_.”

Echolls exhales through gritted teeth. “Well it doesn’t matter whether or not she does, because I have _no_ interest in helping you do whatever the hell it is you’re actually doing, _whoever the hell you actually are_.”

“I’m Veronica Mars, you have my card,” says Veronica, impatient.

He remains unimpressed.

“You can Google me, you know,” she tells him.

“What, here in the office?”

“Fuck off.”

He picks up his phone and begins tapping it... maybe he _is_ actually Googling her, Veronica doesn’t know, but she stays put until he looks up from the screen, annoyed.

“You can sit there as long as you want,” he snaps. “You’re not going to change my mind. I’m not gonna help you.”

* * *

“I can’t believe I’m helping you,” whines Echolls, while he follows, half a step behind, as she leads the way across the lobby at La Mela.

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Do _you_?”

Veronica proves her case by not responding.

They reach the entrance of the ballroom, and Veronica flashes the day pass she purchased earlier. Echolls just nods at the doorman. Apparently he has spent enough time at this thing that they know him by sight. And here Veronica had assumed it was just a tax write-off—

 _No, Veronica Mars,_ No _. You will_ not _find things to like about this annoying man._

Whatever the ballroom looks like normally, it’s been completely made-over for the festival. Gallery walls are erected throughout, creating a labyrinth of (ugly but extremely expensive) art. Veronica knows from her earlier visits that the next hall over is similarly decorated. There’s a bar along the entire wall to the right, and the furthest corner of the room has been partitioned off for the evening auction. The guests are primarily a mix of observably moneyed Neptune-ites and tourists, with a smattering of professional snobs and prefab eccentric artistic types. There’s a pretty good crowd, considering it’s the middle of the day. Someone has put a lot of effort into making this thing a success, though Veronica refuses to flatter him so much as to believe that it’s Logan Echolls.

She takes a couple of speculative steps into the ballroom and, not immediately spotting their target, wheels around to Echolls, who is texting on his phone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.” He waits a moment, then reads off his screen, “Bianca’s in the kitchen, c’mon.”

“Oh, I don’t have the key,” says Bianca-the-event-coordinator, when they track her down next to the walk-in freezer, barking orders at the chef.

“Told you so,” Veronica mutters, and Echolls rolls his eyes.

“It seemed like a security risk carrying it around with me all day,” Bianca carries on. She’s a tall, attractive woman in her thirties, wearing a neat black suit and brandishing a clipboard like she could and might use it as weapon. “I gave it back to the day manager to store in his safe until we need access downstairs.” She glances at Veronica (keeps her suspicion inconspicuous), then back to Logan: “Was there something in particular you needed from the staging room?”

“I think I dropped an earring,” says Logan.

Bianca doesn’t question the excuse. “Vega’s office is over by the coffee shop. His name’s on the door.”

Vega the Day Manager doesn’t answer when they knock on his office door.

“Well I guess that’s that,” sighs Echolls, “Oh, no, wait you’re a criminal, I forgot...” He tags the latter on when Veronica goes ahead and opens the office door anyway.

“What? It’s not like it’s locked.”

The safe is, though.

“It’s not like it’s _stealing_. _You’re_ allowed to have the key.”

So reasons Veronica while she kneels in front of the Sentry combination box in the corner of the day manager’s office. Echolls has perched himself on the desk, balanced back on the heels of his hands as he watches her skeptically. He does not stop her or call security, however, which Veronica interprets as permission.

“You could just wait for the manager to come back.”

“At _four_? Who has time for that?” ( _If the manager didn’t want people checking his calendar, he shouldn’t leave his laptop unlocked on his desk, right?)_ “I need to concentrate. Be quiet and keep an eye out.”

Echolls does neither. “So on average," he says, with zero concern for Veronica’s concentration or ability to crack the combination, "how typical would you say this level of petty criminality is, in your line of work?” She glares at him over her shoulder, then resumes focus on her task.

“You’re more than welcome to leave any time you like,” she says.

“Yeah, and how are you going to get down to the basement without me? There are guards, y’know.”

“I’m not worried. Have a key and look like you belong, and you can get away with a lot.”

“So pretty common, then.”

“Huh?”

“The petty criminality.”

Veronica clocks her first click from the lock and opts not to answer.

“It’s all very _Charlie’s Angels_ ,” Echolls rattles on, evidently entertained by the sound of his own voice, which Veronica endeavors to tune out. “I’d probably find that endearing if _I_ wasn’t the sucker at the bar.”

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

“Yeah but you didn’t _sound_ sorry.” Obviously, he is determined to vex.

“What, you want me to grovel?”

“Well, if you’re offering...”

“I’m not.”

“Out of curiosity—and I think I have the right to know—how far would you have taken your little sting operation last night?”

Veronica pauses. “What exactly are you implying?” 

Echolls slides off the desk and begins to pace. “What exactly are you inferring?”

Veronica bites down on her tongue to stop herself from telling him to _fuck off_. Again. Only because—contrary to _anything_ she’ll ever admit—her job will be a lot easier if Echolls helps. Cooperates. Whatever. It’s not like she _needs_ him. “Don’t flatter yourself,” is what she actually does say.

“Why not?” His tone is a little lighter though. He snaps his fingers and claps his palm against his knuckles while he walks directionless circles around the front of the office. “You _were_ trying to seduce me.”

Veronica scoffs. “Trust me, if I’d been trying to seduce you, you’d have been seduced.”

“Now who’s flattering who's-self?”

At this point, Veronica decides that the only way she will silence Echolls long enough for her to work is if she puts this matter to bed once and for all. So to speak. She stands up and rounds on him. “Believe it or not,” she says matter-of-factly, “it would be pretty simple to get your keys.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Only because...” _Well, no need to go into all of that_. She is unsure if “ _You’re not as dumb as you look”_ would inflate his ego or insult it; the latter would be unhelpful and the former annoying.

“Only because I’m not totally easy?”

“Only because I ran out of time.”

“Right.”

_Fine, then, Logan Echolls, you want to play it that way..._

Veronica relaxes her posture, takes a coy step toward him, and, dropping her voice to the sweetest ingénue inflection in her arsenal, says, “You mean _you_ put on this whole event? And it’s all for charity? Wow. I had _no_ idea. You must have...” With each word she takes a decisive step forward: “Such. A big. Heart.” Echolls folds his arms, but there’s a slow-growing smile on his face. Veronica’s eyes are laser-focused on his, and he meets her stare, unflinching. “You _have_ to let me show you all my favorite _exhibits_. I’ll tell you what all the pretty colors mean, and you can read the big words for me.” She ends on a note that’s a little more _Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend_ , just to drive the point home.

She’s invading his personal space now, but they’re not touching. She could. It would be easy and in-character to lay a hand on his chest—not to mention enjoyable. He’s broad and warm and smells good, and she’s inexplicably _itching_ to touch. But she doesn’t. It would be a violation of something; she doesn’t know what.

Up close, Veronica is struck again by how unexpectedly handsome he is: the long, lean lines of his face, a wide, almost gleeful look, and dark eyes flickering, studying.

Fuck.

She doesn’t have a clear idea of how long it is, before the change passes over his features, but eventually it’s like he remembers that he dislikes her, and his expression hardens. The smile becomes mean, and his eyes narrow. “You’re not my type,” he says—not a particularly complex sentiment, but he injects enough spite into it that Veronica feels faintly— _idiotically_ —disappointed. She turns on her heel and walks back toward the safe.

“I needed your keys, not a marriage proposal,” she snaps.

“And yet...”

But he leaves her alone long enough to crack the safe.

Echolls steals the key just about the second Veronica retrieves it.

It’s one of those round plastic electronic chip keys, and he plucks it from her hand before she is even standing up again.

“ _I’m_ allowed to have a copy,” he says, " _You_ aren't." Veronica rolls her eyes but follows him out of the office.

“So—success rate. Are we talking... thirty... thirty-five percent?”

Turns out, when he wants to, Logan Echolls has quite a fast clip, and Veronica is practically jogging to keep up as he winds through the gallery floor, twirling the keyring around his index finger.

“Success rate with what?”

“Picking pockets for hapless marks. And does the average go up or down when you factor in a plunging neckline?”

_Asshole._

“I’d say the success rate is about... twice whatever you fare in bar pick-ups.” He shoots a doubtful look over his shoulder. Veronica pretends to gag. Recites his cliche from last night: “’ _I keep showing up and they keep paying me?’_ Jesus, I thought you were going to order a vodka-Red Bull and start quoting _Entourage_.”

He quickens his pace, probably to spite her. “Now, Miss Mars, didn’t you learn a valuable lesson about judgment, books, and covers _just_ last night? It is _Miss_ Mars, isn’t it, or is there some lucky guy waiting at home, working his way through _The Art of French Cooking_ as we speak?”

Veronica chooses to disregard his second question. “I’m not sure what lesson I was supposed to have learned. I got a free meal out of it _and_ I got to wear my favorite dress.” She’s in heels— _wedge-heeled ankle boots, but still_ —which makes it that much harder to keep up with Echolls, but she’ll be damned before she lets him know that. If she gets callouses on her feet later, so fucking be it.

“I see,” he says (she’d swear he’s walking even _faster)_. “So you get a kick out of lying and manipulating people.”

That’s not exactly how Veronica would choose to characterize her profession, but still, “Well if you don’t love your work...”

“...Why buy the cow?” He tosses back a smarmy look but then, in a display of obnoxious grace, stops abruptly to avoid colliding with the guard at the door Veronica had not even realized they’d reached. He spins back to face her. Veronica manages to halt herself in time, admittedly a step or two closer than she would otherwise have landed, but she sneers up at him and makes like it was intentional. “We’re here,” he says.

“I noticed.”

He turns back to face Security.

It’s the hotel’s security company—you can tell from the black polo shirt/blazer combo that the brick-wall-of-a-man is wearing as he stands in front of the entrance to the lower level. Echolls flashes ID, but greets the guy by name, which shows a surprising ( _decreasingly surprising)_ amount of foresight. The guard— _Vince_ —glances at the ID and then at Logan, but doesn’t move out of their away just yet, instead turning suspicious eyes to Veronica.

“You enjoying the event, Mr. Echolls?” asks Vince gruffly.

“Not really,” he says, and Vince chuckles.

“See the game last night?”

“Just on highlights. Ryu came through, huh?”

“You see that double-play?”

“Yeah.”

Satisfied, Vince nods and hands over Echolls's badge. Steps out of the way and—once Logan has beeped open the lock with the key fob—holds the door for them.

Just to make a point, Veronica steps in front of them both, pausing long enough to say, “Too bad Pederson’s still on the D.L.,” before stalking ahead.

Echolls snorts as he follows, then the door clicks closed behind them. They’re standing on a short landing, before by a steep descending staircase, and Veronica moves briskly to take the lead this time. “Well at least you were telling the truth about being a Dodgers fan,” he says.

“Ugh, God no. Never. Padres forever, Baby.”

“Then at least you’re accustomed to disappointment.” Veronica opens her mouth to object, then closes it. He is not, in fact, wrong. Echolls jogs along down the stairs to catch up with her. “So how does one end up a Private Detective?” he asks. “Do you come from a long line of private dicks, or did you just like the idea of getting paid to take dirty pictures?”

“That’s it. You’ve caught me.”

They land at the bottom of the staircase; a short, beige painted, fluorescently lit corridor stretches before them, then hooks a left. Veronica’s destination lies around the corner, and she takes off.

“I think porn pays better," he says. "More respectable too.”

“You would know.”

“Of course not, Echollses never dabbled in anything as honest as pornography.

Again, she refuses to find him amusing. Out of the corner of her eye, she notes that he’s stuck his hands in the pockets of his slacks and is strutting along, keeping up without much effort, despite Veronica’s fervent pace. “Of _course_ ,” she matches his faux-dignified air. “Your father won _Oscars_.”

“Murder trials too,” he says grimly.

Veronica has by this time Googled enough to recognize Logan’s disdain. He testified _against_ his father in the Lilly Kane murder trial, and she feels a tad guilty for having brought up Aaron Echolls at all.

“My dad’s a private investigator; I work with him,” she answers his question, as a consolation. “I graduated law school, but it wasn’t for me.”

“So does that make it Mars _et Mars_ Investigations?” he replies, and she sees that he has located her card from his own pocket and is examining it at eye-level, exaggerated. “What do you gotta do to get your name on the door?”

“My name’s already on the door.” She doesn’t manage to miss the skeptical look he sends her way before sliding the card back into his pocket.

“Well at least they know how to spell it," he says.

They round the corner. If Veronica’s recollection of the hotel layout is correct—and she has no reason to doubt it—the entrance to the staging room is a few yards off, on their left. She clocks the mounted security cameras at each end of the hallway, but knows from experience that their footage reveals little.

“Don’t tell me they made a typo on that modernist-hellscape you call an office?” she asks conversationally.

“Oh no, they’re all excellent spellers at _Coronet_.”

“How did you end up with that gig, anyway?”

“Technically I’m doing a favor for a friend... gee, I hope they’re paying me.”

“You ended up at the trendiest start-up in California as a _favor_ for a friend?”

“I have the heart of a philanthropist.”

“Good to know the meritocracy is alive and well.”

“Don’t you work for your _dad_?”

“Because those two things are definitely the same.”

They reach the door to the staging room, and Veronica notices (with a twinge of foreboding) a blue punch-in keypad to the right of the entrance—a keypad for which she decidedly does _not_ know the code. _That’s new_.

She tries the pull-handle once, and—sure enough—the door doesn’t budge. Nothing is ever that simple.

Echolls crosses his arms and falls back against the wall. “I don’t suppose you have the combination?” he says cheerfully.

“I do not.” She ducks down to take a look at the bottom of the keypad.

“What are you doing?”

“Can you _not_ distract me for two seconds?” Printed in small white typeface is the brand name of the lock-pad: Limelight.

 _Limelight, Limelight, Limelight..._ She closes her eyes, trying to remember...

“Are you attempting telepathy?” Echolls whispers.

“Believe me, if I had telepathy, you would know it by now.” Out of the corner of her eye, she catches the positively gleeful reaction that elicits. “Ugh. Choke, please.”

“That’s rude.”

Veronica shakes her head, trying to block out Echolls altogether. Limelight. New-ish model... 2014, maybe? If she remembers correctly, the administrator access code for Limelight products is _hashtag..._

She raises her index finger, poised to enter the code...

“Are you _guessing_?” Echolls asks.

Goddammit. Veronica sighs. “This model of keypad has an override,” she explains. “If you enter the admin code, you can trigger a restart and the door should unlock.”

“Really.”

“Yes. Now please be quiet, I’m trying to think.”

“But if you wipe the keypad, won’t someone be able to tell you’ve been tampering with things? Seems like that could interfere with your little so-called investigation.”

“Well I don’t have a lot of choices, do I? Now why don’t you make yourself useful and stand over _here_ and block the security camera.”

Echolls considers the offer for a moment. Then he grins and pushes off the wall. “As much as I’d love to see that,” he says, “This seems easier.” He reaches over and starts punching in numbers on the keypad.

_son of a bitch_

“You have the passcode.”

“Sure, they give it out with the rental...”

“Okay, shut up, just...”

It’s a full _ten digit_ code, and he types it in from memory.

“You memorized that.” She’s not jealous of his ability, honest.

“I mean, _you_ know some random lock-making company’s admin code...”

“Just hurry up and...”

The door clicks, and Veronica yanks it open.

“Everything about you is insufferable," she says.

“I think I’m a delight.”

The staging room is a large, colorless space. More florescent lighting, concrete floor. There is a square, black flat-top desk in the center of the room and a handful of storage crates stacked, propped against the walls.

Echolls skips— _skips—_ ahead into the room.

“I don’t like that you’re enjoying this,” says Veronica, following at a significantly slower rate. _He is_ fully _skipping. Absurd._ _He is—who DOES that?_

“And _there’s_ that spirit of generosity that I’ve come to expect from you during our short but—seemingly endless acquaintance,” he replies.

She steps around him to inspect the desk, while Echolls cuts a lazy path around the perimeter of the room, poking and snooping at the crates. And yet he's hypocrite enough to say, “I thought you were here to plant a camera.”

“I’m just looking around, geez.” She knocks on the top of the desk, frowns, and then pats at the underside. And— _yep_... a seam runs around beneath the surface and, if pressure is correctly applied...

She pops out the false bottom, crouches to inspect the hidden panel that's released when she does so. Of course it _might_ be innocent, a quirk of the furniture— _or_ a secret compartment, installed for nefarious purposes. Somewhere to stash the fakes, the better to swap out the real diamonds...

She snaps the compartment closed, glances up at Echolls and half expects a reprimand, but he’s only watching her with something that might be construed as interest.

Veronica decides to ignore this.

 _Plant the cameras and beat it_.

There’s an air-vent that will do. It’s high up on the wall, but the dark metal will blend with Veronica’s spy-cam, and the positioning is such that she should be able to capture the entirety of the room.

Now: how to reach it. _Ask for a boost?_ Bad idea.

Instead, Veronica locates a mount-able crate nearby that should put her in the right height range. Without consulting Echolls, she crosses the room and, mustering strength _(no points to be proven here),_ shoves the crate into the corner. 

She can’t quite help glancing over her shoulder when the task is complete. Echolls has strutted round to the desk, leans, hands in his pockets once more. His lips curve into a smile that provokes a reaction... a prickle of something, just beneath her skin.

_Plant the cameras and beat it._

She tosses her hair, pushes herself up onto the crate. If she stands on her toes, can _just_ reach the air vent. She digs into her purse, locates and situates the mini-camera to the corner of the vent, angles the lens downward to capture the room, and then checks the video feed on her phone. Satisfied that the placement will do the trick (and garner little attention), she looks up to see Echolls, still watching her. It is not unexpected.

Veronica affects her most indignant throat-clear: “What?”

He shrugs.

“ _What_?”

“I always thought the P.I. biz was all ugly little men in raincoats."

She crosses her arms. Never mind that she’s standing on top of a crate—actually, she rather enjoys having a height advantage for once. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”

He mimes innocence: "Who's mad?"

_It's actually a bit of a pity that he doesn't like her._

But—never mind.

Veronica rolls her eyes, then lowers herself down off her platform. Likely Echolls hasn’t _completely_ forgiven, since he does not come assist—not that Veronica requires his assistance in the slightest. She sits down on the edge and hops to the floor, prepared to declare their mission accomplished, when a beeping sound _—_ originating from the general direction of the room's only entrance _—_ thwarts her.

 _The keypad._ Someone is coming through the door.

Echolls verbalizes this fact, an instant before she can.

“Shit.”

“It’s fine,” he says, “I’ll just say...”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Veronica cuts him off. It might very well be fine for _him_ , but not for _her._ Their visitor could be upper level management, one of the Ayers, whom Veronica has not dismissed from her suspect list... several of whom know her by sight. They are not all (it would surprise few to learn) Veronica Mars's number one fans.

She casts her eyes around the room for some form of cover, but there really isn’t much. The room is airy, well-lit: even the crates wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny.

_Damn._

She walks over to the desk, where Echolls continues to lean, watching her curiously. 

“Look," she says, "I’m really sorry about this, but just go with it.”

“With—?”

Before he can complete the question, Veronica thoroughly invades his personal space, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him full on the lips.

For a moment, she is vaguely aware of the double-beep that indicates the keypad unlocking, and then another sound that is likely the door opening—but mostly she is aware of the fact that Logan Echolls hasn’t pushed her away, which could be considerate, worrisome, or possibly just indicative of slow reflexes.

It’s just a stage kiss, after all.

For about two seconds.

Then, Logan comes round, either to the scheme or to the idea of making out with her, because his posture relaxes, he shifts, and his lips stir. Not so much a demand as an invitation, and the other realities of their situation become far less... immediate. She doesn't think _—_ _can't think, or she'll stop—_ just reacts, answers to what she wants and suddenly needs. She slides one hand round to his cheek, directing. The thing is, she knows there is something else she’s supposed to be doing, but Logan Echolls is distracting her, and if he’s going to distract her, she is going to distract him _worse._

There’s a warm, solid pressure on her back—his hand—and he’s too _tall_ , but he cocks his head and there’s the faintest brush of his tongue, and if he’s going to fight unfairly then he should know that he is challenging a master. She slips her tongue between his lips, tastes him, and it's like waking up from a dream. He pushes deeper, asks for more; Veronica pushes back, obliges. The prickle from before grows _—_ he responds, tests her, and when his teeth graze her lower lip, desire shoots through her body, white hot and overpowering. She feels his body shift again beneath her hands, pressing her close—she had _known_ there were muscles involved, she’s not blind, but she really didn’t have a proper _scope_ of his situation until just now...

_Fuck._

_fuckfuckfuckfuck_

But also—

_“Excuse me!”_

Echolls pulls back, with a rush of cool air that feels like a pressure change, and the expression on his face feels like victory.

Except that then he tilts his head, his eyes get a little wide, and a lump forms in her chest that she lacks the vocabulary to define. He turns back, throws over his shoulder a disgruntled sounding “ _Can I help you?”_ which prompts the realization that somewhere in the midst of _all that just now,_ Echolls has moved her body out of the line of sight from the door, put all six feet of himself between her and the visitor, and has—without direction or permission—cast himself as the lead in this little charade.

 _Dammit_.

* * *

“Can I help you?” Logan demands, while doing his fighting-best to clear his head. There’s a blonde in his arms and her nails are digging into the back of his neck in a way that he should _not_ enjoy so much, but first things first. One of the hotel managers—Carla, he thinks; Logan met her a few times in the lead-up to the festival—stands in the doorway, flanked by a uniformed security guard that Logan doesn’t know. They both look pissed.

For about two seconds.

Then Carla’s features settle in recognition: she’s a neat, professional type—one of those who wears a wrap-dress like a suit of armor, so that even if she finds herself in a deferential mood, Logan does not expect much beyond civility.

“Mr. Echolls,” she says, and color does rise in her cheeks at having interrupted such a moment. Logan—reluctantly, he won’t deny it—releases Veronica at the same time that she pulls her hands away from him. He angles himself a little more toward the door, still obstructing Carla’s view of his companion. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

The security guard clears his throat.

“Can I help you?” Logan repeats, folding his arms. “I was under the impression this area was included in the rental agreement for the...” He waves a hand in the vague direction of the hall.

“I—yes.” Now Carla clears her throat. On his left, Veronica Mars makes a sound that might be amused or irritated. “Of course. We—erm—noticed activity on the video feeds in the hallway. The security of your assets is of the utmost importance to our staff.” (This time, the sound is definitely irritated).

“I was giving my friend a—tour,” he says, with calculated euphemistic emphasis.

“Of course.” Carla dips her head in a way that mimics obsequiousness, but plays more like a threat. “Our hotel has a number of amenities—please let us know if you would like our assistance in locating any of them.” (Which is the nicest way that Logan has ever been told to "get a room"). "Jackson," Carla adds, and the security guard takes this as a cue, because they’re both squeezing out through the doorway a moment later. With the click of the lock, Logan and Veronica are alone again.

She steps away from him immediately, snatching out her cell and busying herself with it—or pretending to, at any rate. She, too, clears her throat (must be something in the air) and says, “Sorry about that. Thanks.” Logan doesn’t know which to believe—her airy tone of voice or the determination with which she does not look at him.

 _Shit_.

But also—not.

“Question,” he says.

“Hmmm?”

“On a scale of—never to frequent...?”

“Rare.”

“Right.”

Veronica Mars looks up from her phone, finally meets his eye again. She slips the cell back into her pocket, and a smile starts, ever so slowly, across her lips. It doesn’t get very far, like she has conditioned herself to reveal only so much. The prospect somehow appeals.

When she marched into his office earlier, the disconnect had been jarring—a startling contrast between the sunny blonde who picked him up at the bar last night and the surly, aggressively confident investigator, bossing him around like it was her true calling in life. He thinks he gets it now, though. The whole thing. He won't lie: he's been navigating competing impulses all afternoon _—_ on the one hand, to distrust a woman who has given him absolutely every reason to distrust her, and on the other hand, a wholly idiotic attraction that he _isn't_ sure can be attributed merely to tight jeans and a leather jacket. This latest development should probably tip the scales for the former, but predictably has not. Truth be told, he can't say that the impulses are competing anymore, so much as driving him inexorably toward some inevitable, enticing conclusion.

“We might want to give it another minute,” she says at length. “For your friends to get out of the hall.”

Logan nods. “So what do you think?"

"About...?"

"Is Carla your big bad diamond thief?”

Veronica lets out a breath, and it's a little shaky. She recovers so quickly, the flash of vulnerability is scarcely perceptible. She hikes up her bag on her shoulder. “I thought you didn’t believe in the diamond thief.”

“Call it _healthy skepticism_.”

“I think I have that tattooed somewhere.” She raises her eyebrows at him, and if that’s not a challenge, Logan doesn’t know what _is_.

“You know something,” he says. “I’m beginning to think you didn’t even study art history.”

“Between you and me,” she takes a step closer—to him or the door—“All that stuff out there looks like a bunch of overpriced crap to me.”

She has a point. Nonetheless: "A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Veronica stares, unimpressed, but Logan suspects that is mostly for show.

"Oscar Wilde," he elaborates, then concedes: "Roughly."

"Ah. And what's the one about if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a...?"

"Tattoo?"

"Mmm, that's it." Another step closer. "You know I don't usually _let_ marks buy me lunch."

"A planned life is a dead life," he replies. _Lauren Bacall_. "But you're crazy if you think _I'm_ buying."

* * *

“Don’t take it the wrong way," Veronica tells him, stretching luxuriously, "but I don’t usually do this with marks either.” She reaches her arm up, scratches her scalp till her fingers are tangled in her hair. Feels so damn good, it should probably be illegal. Of its own accord, her back arches upward, away from this godsend of a mattress and toward _skin_.

Logan—she has learned in the last thirty-forty-whatever hours—is incapable of uttering a sentence that is not at least half dirty, and it doesn’t help that he’s naked, on top of her, and mere minutes away (in both directions) from getting her off. He murmurs, “What’s the ‘wrong way’ to take that?”

“As a compliment.”

He snorts. “So I should be insulted?”

“Mhm,” she says, squirming. “It means you’re not very valuable as an asset.”

There’s an obvious joke there about _assets_ : instead of making it, Logan lifts his head and bobs his eyebrows, and the point is well enough taken. She hooks a leg around him, and Logan smirks, then places a featherlight kiss, improbably delicate, below her collar bone. Asks instead: “Do you usually go on three and a half dates with marks?” He shifts lower, nips with teeth at the flesh between her ribs. “Just so I know how insulted I should be.”

“No.” She does the math, frowns, and corrects him: “ _Two_ and a half dates.”

“I was counting breakfast tomorrow.”

"Mmm. Who’s to say I won’t sneak out once you fall asleep?”

“I have a booth at Sambrini’s.”

There should be a... some kind of award commission, for what he can do with his hands. “Sambrini’s doesn’t take reservations. That’s why there’s always a crazy line.”

“I know the owner.”

“And they’re still letting you in?” He doesn’t answer, because it wasn't very clever and because he’s busy marking the skin over her hipbone with his mouth. Veronica sighs. His head dips lower still. Her eyes flutter shut, and she runs her toes along the muscles down his back. Hums, before coherency becomes a lost cause altogether: “I may be open to persuasion...” 

Subterfuge and trickery certainly have their place in Veronica's line of work, but in certain cases, there's something to be said for the direct approach as a means to achieve a mutually satisfying conclusion.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a very silly piece, but we're all here to have fun  
> mistakes are mine, because editing takes patience


End file.
